Author Guidelines

General Information

Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal publishing high-quality research addressing soil science, environmental science, and interactions among soil, water, climate, ecosystems, agriculture, and human activities.

The journal welcomes Original Research Articles, Review Articles, Short Communications, Methodological Papers, and other relevant scholarly contributions within its scope.

All manuscripts must be original, scientifically rigorous, clearly written in English, and not previously published or simultaneously submitted to another journal.

Submission Files Required

Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research follows a double-anonymous peer-review system.

To protect the anonymity of authors and reviewers, authors must upload two separate Microsoft Word files during initial submission.

1. Anonymous Manuscript File

This file will be sent to reviewers and therefore must not contain any information that could identify the authors or their institutions.

The Anonymous Manuscript File should normally contain:

• Title of the manuscript

• Abstract

• Keywords

• Introduction

• Materials and Methods

• Results

• Discussion

• Conclusions

• Declarations, where applicable, without identifying information

• Tables

• Figures and figure captions

• References

• Appendices or supplementary information, where applicable

For manuscripts where appropriate, Results and Discussion may be presented as a combined section.

Authors should carefully remove:

• Author names

• Institutional affiliations

• Email addresses

• ORCID iDs

• Acknowledgements identifying authors or institutions

• Identifying information from headers, footers, file properties, or tracked changes

Self-citations should be written in a neutral manner and should not reveal the identity of the authors.

Manuscripts containing identifying information may be returned to the authors for correction before peer review.

2. Title Page / Author Details File

The Title Page is intended for editorial use and will not be provided to reviewers.

It must contain:

• Full title of the manuscript

• Full names of all authors

• Institutional affiliation(s) of each author

• Department, institution/university, city, state/province, and country

• Email address of each author

• ORCID iD of each author, where available

• Name and complete contact details of the corresponding author

• Author Contributions Statement

• Acknowledgements

• Funding Statement

• Conflict of Interest / Competing Interests Declaration

• Data Availability Statement

• AI Use Disclosure Statement

• Ethical Approval Statement, where applicable

• Informed Consent Statement, where applicable

• Consent for Publication, where applicable

Authors should ensure that the authorship information entered in the OJS submission system is identical to that provided on the Title Page.

 

Manuscript Preparation

Language

Manuscripts must be written in clear and professional English.

Authors are responsible for ensuring adequate language quality before submission. Manuscripts whose language substantially interferes with scientific assessment may be returned for language revision before peer review.

Title

The title should be concise, informative, and accurately represent the principal subject of the study.

Avoid unnecessary abbreviations, overly broad statements, and excessively long titles.

Abstract

Original Research Articles should normally contain a concise and informative abstract presenting:

• Background or rationale

• Objective

• Methodology

• Major findings

• Principal conclusion and implications

The abstract should be understandable independently of the main manuscript and should normally avoid citations and undefined abbreviations.

Keywords

Provide approximately 4–6 keywords that adequately represent the subject matter of the manuscript.

Keywords should preferably not simply repeat words already appearing in the title.

Guidelines for Soil and Environmental Research

Authors should provide sufficient methodological information to allow the research to be evaluated and, where possible, reproduced.

Depending on the nature of the study, manuscripts should clearly report relevant information such as:

• Geographic location of the study area

• Latitude and longitude, where appropriate

• Soil type and classification system used

• Sampling design

• Sampling depth

• Number of samples and replicates

• Sampling period or season

• Sample collection and preservation procedures

• Laboratory analytical methods

• Instruments and analytical equipment

• Calibration and quality-control procedures

• Detection and quantification limits, where relevant

• Units of measurement

• Statistical methods

• Software and version used

• Spatial resolution for GIS or remote-sensing studies

• Data sources for secondary or geospatial datasets

• Model development and validation procedures

• Uncertainty assessment, where relevant

Soil Studies

For soil-based research, authors should provide relevant site and soil characteristics whenever applicable, including parameters such as soil texture, pH, organic carbon, electrical conductivity, nutrient status, bulk density, moisture conditions, or other properties necessary for interpreting the study.

Environmental Monitoring and Pollution Studies

Studies involving pollutants, heavy metals, pesticides, emerging contaminants, wastewater, or environmental monitoring should clearly describe:

• Sampling procedures

• Sample preservation

• Analytical methods

• Quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC)

• Standards and reference materials, where applicable

• Instrument calibration

• Detection limits, where relevant

Modelling, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Studies

Manuscripts involving modelling, machine learning, deep learning, or artificial intelligence should provide sufficient information for scientific evaluation and reproducibility.

Where applicable, authors should report:

• Data sources

• Input and target variables

• Sample size

• Data preprocessing

• Training, validation, and testing strategy

• Hyperparameter selection or optimization

• Performance metrics

• Baseline or benchmark models

• Measures taken to prevent data leakage

• Uncertainty analysis

• Model interpretation or explainability

• Software, libraries, and versions used

Random data splitting should be scientifically justified for spatially or temporally structured environmental datasets. Authors are encouraged to use appropriate temporal, spatial, blocked, or independent validation where required by the research question.

Reference and Citation Style

Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research follows the American Psychological Association (APA) style for in-text citations and references.

Authors must ensure that:

• In-text citations follow APA style.

• Every source cited in the manuscript appears in the reference list.

• Every reference included in the reference list is cited in the manuscript.

• Author names and publication years correspond between citations and references.

• References contain complete bibliographic information.

• DOI information is provided wherever available.

• DOI information should preferably be presented as a DOI URL.

• References should preferably be drawn from reliable primary scholarly sources.

Important Style Instruction

The expression “et al.” must not be italicized.

Correct examples:

(Nanda et al., 2024)

Das et al. (2023) reported that...

Authors are responsible for verifying the accuracy of references and DOI information before submission.

Tables and Figures

Tables and figures must be of sufficient quality for scientific evaluation and publication.

Tables

Tables must:

• Be numbered consecutively using Arabic numerals: Table 1, Table 2, Table 3, etc.

• Be cited in numerical order in the manuscript.

• Have a concise and self-explanatory title.

• Have the table number and title placed above the table.

• Define abbreviations, symbols, and statistical notation where necessary.

• Include appropriate units.

• Avoid unnecessary duplication of information presented in the text or figures.

Example:

Table 1. Selected physicochemical properties of soils from the study area

Figures

Figures must:

• Be numbered consecutively: Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3, etc.

• Be cited in numerical order in the manuscript.

• Have a clear and informative caption.

• Have the figure caption placed below the figure.

• Contain legible labels, legends, symbols, and scale information.

• Be of sufficient resolution for publication.

Maps should include appropriate geographic information such as a scale bar, north arrow, coordinate information, legend, and study-area location, where applicable.

Authors should ensure that figures remain interpretable when printed or viewed by readers with colour-vision deficiencies. Excessive decorative elements, unnecessary three-dimensional effects, and misleading graphical representations should be avoided.

Units, Nomenclature and Scientific Names

Authors should use SI units wherever appropriate.

Scientific names of organisms should be italicized and follow accepted taxonomic nomenclature.

Abbreviations should be defined at first use unless they are internationally recognized standard abbreviations.

Chemical symbols, equations, soil properties, environmental parameters, and statistical notation should be presented consistently throughout the manuscript.

Statistical Reporting

Statistical procedures must be clearly described.

Authors should report, where applicable:

• Number of observations or replicates

• Statistical tests used

• Significance level

• Measures of variability or uncertainty

• Exact or appropriately reported p-values

• Confidence intervals

• Model evaluation statistics

Statistical significance should not be interpreted as equivalent to scientific or practical importance.

Research Ethics

Research involving humans, animals, sensitive ecological locations, protected species, or regulated experimental procedures must comply with applicable institutional, national, and international ethical requirements.

Where ethical approval is required, authors must provide the name of the approving authority and relevant approval information.

Studies involving human participants must provide appropriate information regarding informed consent.

Field research requiring collection permits, access permissions, or regulatory approval should provide the relevant information where applicable.

Data Availability

Authors must include a Data Availability Statement describing whether and how the data supporting the findings can be accessed.

Authors are strongly encouraged to deposit research data, code, models, and other relevant materials in appropriate trusted repositories whenever ethical, legal, confidentiality, contractual, and intellectual-property considerations permit.

Where data cannot be made publicly available, the Data Availability Statement should briefly explain the reason and indicate whether the data may be available from the corresponding author subject to appropriate conditions.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies cannot be listed as authors or co-authors.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to the journal, including:

• Accuracy

• Originality

• References

• Interpretation

• Scientific integrity

• Compliance with copyright and ethical requirements

Where generative AI or AI-assisted technologies have been used in a manner that materially contributes to manuscript preparation or research, authors must provide an appropriate AI Use Disclosure Statement.

AI-generated references must not be included without verification against the original scholarly source.

Author Contributions

The journal encourages authors to describe individual contributions using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) where appropriate.

Potential contribution categories include:

• Conceptualization

• Methodology

• Software

• Validation

• Formal analysis

• Investigation

• Resources

• Data curation

• Writing – original draft

• Writing – review and editing

• Visualization

• Supervision

• Project administration

• Funding acquisition

All listed authors must satisfy appropriate authorship criteria and accept responsibility for their contributions.

Conflict of Interest

Authors must disclose any financial, professional, institutional, personal, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research.

If no competing interests exist, authors may state:

“The authors declare that they have no competing interests.”

Funding

All sources of financial support must be disclosed.

The funding agency, grant number, and recipient should be provided where applicable.

If the research received no specific funding, authors may state:

“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”

Originality and Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted to Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research must represent original scholarly work.

Submitted manuscripts may be screened using appropriate similarity-detection software.

The journal evaluates similarity reports in their scholarly context rather than relying solely on a numerical similarity percentage. Properly cited references, standard methodological terminology, unavoidable technical expressions, and legitimate overlap may be treated differently from unattributed copying.

Plagiarism, inappropriate text recycling, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, citation manipulation, and other forms of research misconduct are not acceptable.

Where potential misconduct is identified, the journal may request clarification, reject the manuscript, or take appropriate post-publication action in accordance with established publication-ethics procedures.

Licensing Policy

Articles accepted for publication in Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) unless otherwise specified.

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, users may share and adapt published material for any purpose, including commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the license is provided, and any modifications are indicated.

Authors retain copyright in their published work.

Submission Preparation Checklist

Before completing a submission, authors must confirm that:

• The manuscript falls within the scope of Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research.

• The manuscript represents original work.

• The manuscript has not previously been published, except where permitted under journal policy.

• The manuscript is not simultaneously under consideration by another journal, conference proceedings, book, or publisher.

• All authors have approved the manuscript and agreed to its submission.

• All authorship information is accurate.

• Two separate files have been uploaded: Anonymous Manuscript File and Title Page / Author Details File.

• The anonymous manuscript contains no author-identifying information.

• Citations and references follow APA style.

• All citations correspond with entries in the reference list and vice versa.

• DOI information has been provided wherever available and verified.

• Tables and figures are numbered and cited correctly.

• Necessary ethical approvals, permissions, and informed consent have been obtained, where applicable.

• Funding and competing interests have been disclosed.

• A Data Availability Statement has been provided.

• An AI Use Disclosure Statement has been provided where applicable.

• Permissions have been obtained for copyrighted third-party material where required.

• The manuscript complies with the journal's publication-ethics policies.

Original Research

This section accepts full-length original research articles presenting novel and scientifically rigorous findings relevant to soil science, environmental science, soil–water–plant interactions, environmental pollution, land and water management, climate–soil interactions, environmental monitoring, ecological restoration, digital soil science, and related interdisciplinary fields.

Original Research manuscripts should provide clearly defined objectives, appropriate methodology, rigorous analysis, transparent reporting, and conclusions supported by the results.

Review Articles

Review Articles should provide a critical, analytical, and up-to-date synthesis of an important topic within the scope of the journal.

Reviews should go beyond descriptive summaries of previous publications and should identify knowledge gaps, methodological limitations, emerging research directions, and implications for science, policy, or practice.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should follow appropriate established reporting standards.

Short Communications

Short Communications present concise reports of novel and scientifically significant findings that warrant rapid communication but do not require a full-length research article.

They must contain sufficient methodological information and evidence to support their conclusions.

Privacy Statement

Names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, ORCID identifiers, and other personal information submitted to Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research will be used for legitimate scholarly publishing and journal-management purposes.

Information will be handled in accordance with the journal's privacy policy and applicable requirements governing scholarly publishing records.

Records relating to manuscript submission, peer review, editorial decisions, production, and publication may be retained where necessary to preserve the integrity and historical record of the scholarly publishing process.

Contact Information

For questions regarding manuscript preparation or submission, authors may contact:

Editorial Office
Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research
Publisher: Next Gen Academic Services
Email: editorngser@ngenpub.com

Disclaimer

The statements, opinions, interpretations, and data contained in articles published by Next Gen Soil and Environmental Research are solely those of the respective author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the journal, editors, editorial board, or publisher.

The journal, editors, and publisher disclaim responsibility for consequences arising from the use of ideas, methods, instructions, products, or information presented in published articles.